| |
| AS one advances up the slow ascent | |
| Along the pathway in the woods, the trees | |
| Change aspect, nor alone in this, but change | |
| In stature and in power till Solitude | |
| Seems cut out of the ancient forest. Here | 5 |
| Was Solitude! where man had lived of old, | |
| Loved, serving God, and built himself a home. | |
| Man smooths an acre on the rolling earth, | |
| Turns up the mould and reaps the gifts of God; | |
| Plucks down the apple from the tree, the tree | 10 |
| From empire in the forest, builds a home; | |
| Turns for a bout among his brothers, wins | |
| A sister to his wife and gets an heir; | |
| And then as here in Solitude departs | |
| And leaves small mark behind. The place is rare | 15 |
| In this high epic of the human life. | |
| Where wildness has been wilderness shall be, | |
| But give God time; and life is but a span, | |
| Nine inches, while before it and behind | |
| Stretches the garden of the cosmic gods; | 20 |
| For after London, England shall be wild, | |
| And none can thaw the iceberg at the pole. | |
| In Solitude one sees the winding trace | |
| Of what has been a road, a block of stone | |
| Footworn, that lies along the dim pathway | 25 |
| Before one old foundation; and the rest | |
| Is freaks of grass among the rising growth | |
| Of birch and maple that another year | |
| Shall see almost a forest. | |
| |
